


Under the Bed

by Cat_Lady_Without_Cats



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Do Not Post on Other Site, Inspired By Tumblr, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Please be gentle, kid!Tony, monster au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:55:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22466269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Lady_Without_Cats/pseuds/Cat_Lady_Without_Cats
Summary: Monster under the bed AU, inspired by a Tumblr post I saw on Pinterest.That's it, that's the story.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28
Collections: IronSoldier, Kid Fic Avengers





	Under the Bed

There is this one corner in every room, that one corner, where the light doesn’t reach. No matter how much you try, there is this one little corner, always, where no matter what, there is complete darkness.

Through that little corner of the room, unspeakable horrors might enter your room. When the night falls, and you are at that brink of sleep, and the shadows move. You are wide awake in one fraction of a second, wondering if someone is in your room. You question your own furniture, whether it’s the bogey-man standing very, very still at the end of your bed, or just your bedpost with something over it.

Children are more susceptible to these things, more honed in to their senses, figuring out the movements, hearing them before they come. Even the shadows can’t hide them from the kids, they are just too sharp. That is why it’s more challenging and rewarding to scare the kids. The more time you get them to anticipate you, the more wonderful the energy they give out. That stench of fear and adrenalin, their voices breathy and lungs gasping for every breath, oh what deliciousness.

At least that is what Bucky thought it would be like when he had shifted to the new office in New York.

He had started working as a scarer at the age of 19, two years after his ‘human’ death. He remembered some of his human life, mostly he remembered a sick blond that he clung to after seeing him lose one too many back alley fights. It had been 43 years since then, but those blue eyes filed with defiance were seared into his soul.

He never understood why he got the scarer’s life, but he did, and here he was, facing a serious problem, the likes of which he’d never seen.

When he had transferred, he’d been made the leader of the team. The old team had up and quit for some reason, and no one was telling him why. Looking at the file currently sitting on his table, he wondered if that was the reason why. The file belonged to one Tony Stark, 7 years of age and not scared of any kind of monster, not even the most terrifyingly bizarre ones he’d seen adult humans run from.

The file was worrying because Tony had been assigned all the scarers he had and all of them had failed, every single one of them. Any new members he tried to get on the case, soon knew not to accept that particular file, even if it meant not working the night. It was beyond frustrating for him.

He knew the kid was a difficult case, and he didn’t want unnecessary ruckus in the team over one file. His limits were crossed that night when a sentient toy monkey with cymbals came back in tears. In tears!

Looking down at the list of scarers who had been assigned to Tony, he knew it was time for him to step on. It had been some time since he had been in the field. He trusted his team to do the work efficiently. But, with this case, he knew he had to step in and do something before the higher ups were called and the kid left alone for all that mattered.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

~*~

Bucky shed his outer, somewhat normal, appearance to give way to his monster persona.

At 9.08 pm, Jarvis, the Stark’s butler, tucked in the boy in question and went to his room for the night.

At 9.12 pm, Bucky slithered in through the corner of darkness under the boy’s bed. Tony was almost asleep, near the brink of full sleep that the monsters so love to wake humans from. Bucky reached up slowly, running the cold metal fingers of his left hand over the bed’s leg, the sound produced very out of place in the room. The boy gave no reaction to that, so Bucky slowly ran his fingers over the sheets and tugged at them.

Tony was awake now. “I am not afraid of you.” he said, his voice too calm, too steady.

Bucky tugged at the sheets some more and made to grab at his ankle through the sheets.

Suddenly, a door slammed somewhere in the house. Bucky heard the father, Howard Stark, yelling at profanities at the mother, Maria. He could hear the footsteps coming closer to Tony’s room.

In an instant Tony scampered off the bed and crawled underneath it, alongside him.

“Budge over.” Tony whispers, a slight tremble in his voice now, shaky.

The door was slammed open and Bucky smells the man before he even sees him. The stench of alcohol is so pungent that Bucky felt as if the man had bathed in the foul stuff. A slight whimper to his right brings his attention back to the boy, who’s trying to burrow between him and the wall.

And Bucky understands, why Tony was never afraid of the monsters he was assigned. How could he, he’s got one who he lives with day and night.

He watched as the man got on his knees, a hand groping under the bed, clearly knowing Tony’s hiding place. The boy in question curls in on himself tighter, trying to get himself out of the rabid man’s reach.

Seeing the kid so terrified of his own father breaks something in Bucky.

He thrusts his arm towards the still searching hand of the drunken man, who grabs on to it as soon as he feels it. Without realising that it does not feel like human skin let alone any kind of skin.

Howard starts to pull, and Bucky slinks out, growing to his full height of ten plus feet. The man’s voice cut mid-sentence as he realises who or rather what he has dragged out from under his son’s bed.

Bucky knows how terrifying he can look, with his towering height, always dripping wet hair and metallic left arm. His face is what scares everyone the most. He has no mouth to speak of instead just rows upon endless rows of sharp jagged teeth, his eyes are red, the colour of coagulated blood and no nose.

As it happens with others, Howard can’t take his eyes off his jagged teeth, so close to the man’s face now that he had to bend over him to fit in the room. They move constantly, as Bucky feels his anger pulse through his body.

His voice, when Bucky speaks, is so hoarse, it’s like hearing a thousand whispers echo one after the other.

“This child is under my protection.” He almost breathes out, trying to keep his anger in check. “If you touch, harm or scare my child again, I shall do the same that you have done to him till now, for all eternity.” He promises to Howard, his eyes glinting coldly in the dark.

Howard crawls backwards, whimpering and scrambles out of the room on all fours as soon as he reaches the door, but not before Bucky smells the unfortunate accident he’s had.

Turning back into his “normal” appearance, which consists of a mask over his teeth and simply shrinking down his height, he cajoles the terrified and now sleepy Tony out from under the bed, who was so terrified and tired that he was almost frozen stiff.

“I’ll be back tomorrow” he informs the boy, “And every day after that if you wish.”

Tony looks at him in wonder and nods jerkily in answer. 

He then tucks in the boy carefully, keeping his sharp metallic fingers away from the child’s skin; running a hand through his hair till the boy falls asleep. Also because Tony had grabbed ahold of his fingers and would not let go.

Tony Stark will be his personal responsibility from now on, he vows to himself.

Although, he needs to find out if and how many more such cases are out there; maybe it was time to take a different approach.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me your feedback through comments and kudos.
> 
> Any and all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read my work.


End file.
